Hit list - What to read or watch

If you'd like to catch up on your Custer and reexamine the clash of Europeans and Native Americans on the Great Plains, here are some recommendations:

-- "The Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876" by John Stephens Gray, 1988.This book is light on analysis but gives a good overview of the political and economic situations that fed the conflict between the United States and the Native Americans. It puts General George Armstrong Custer in context -- as one of several U.S. Army generals pursuing the people who would not relocate to barren reservations.

-- "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown, 1970This is the book that put the Native American viewpoint into the story of the West and showed the nation their bravery in the face of campaigns to exterminate them. The book covers the 30 years between the Long Walk of the Navahos in 1860 and the shooting of Sioux men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

-- "Custer's Last Stand: The Anatomy of An American Myth" by Brian W. Dippie, 1994.The author studies the battle reenactments, poems, novels, paintings, movies and jokes that built the Custer legend. His look at Custer pop culture becomes a way to understand how History is made and how it reflects the national character.

-- Anything by Robert M. UtleyUtley was a longtime historian for the National Park Service who wrote about the Great Plains in such books as: "Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian," "Indian Wars" and "After Lewis and Clark: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific."

-- Movies about the Battle of Little Bighorn"The accurate movie about Custer is yet to be done," said University of Wyoming history professor Phil Roberts. Of the Dustin Hoffman movie "Little Big Man" he said, "'Little Big Man' is a relic of its time. It was made during the Vietnam era, and it reflects that era. The problem with 'Little Big Man' is that it simplifies the story and sets him up to be an extremely evil man."